Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Famed Designer Richard Sapper Was Once Recruited by Steve Jobs

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,257
39,058



In an interview with design magazine Dezeen, German industrial designer Richard Sapper revealed that he was once recruited by Steve Jobs to do design work for Apple. The interview doesn't specify when the recruitment happened, but it could have been in the early 80's when Apple was just starting out, or in the mid-90's after Jobs returned to the company.

NewImage7.png
Jobs once wanted to hire me to do the design of Apple [computers] but the circumstances weren't right because I didn't want to move to California and I had very interesting work here that I didn't want to abandon. Also, at that time Apple was not a great company, it was just a small computer company. They were doing interesting things so I was very interested, of course, but I had an exclusivity contract with IBM.
Click to expand...
The 81-year old Sapper has been designing products for nearly 60 years, including lamps, phones, radios, coffee makers and an IBM ThinkPad notebook.

Article Link: Famed Designer Richard Sapper Was Once Recruited by Steve Jobs
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/19/famed-designer-richard-sapper-was-once-recruited-by-steve-jobs/
He would have been 65 in 1997 when Jobs came back. Maybe he just wanted to slow things down and retire at that point. Apple was still considered small at that point too.
 
This guy designed the IBM logo?

Didn't the guy who design that logo also design the NeXT logo?
 
Paul Rand designed the NeXT logo.

Sapper designed the Tizio lamp that Jobs so admired according to the Isaacson biography.
 
The ThinkPad has got to be one of the ugliest laptops in the history of computing. Thank God IBM had an exclusivity deal with this guy.
 
He was a fool for not going to Apple. But it's good that he didnt, because now they have Sir Johnny.
 
“at that time Apple was not a great company, it was just a small computer company.”

He wasn't a passionate visionary artist, he was just a worker. You don't join a startup company because is big and powerful, you join a startup company because you love the dream too.

I can imagine (even if he's millionaire today) how bad that sentence sounds today.
 
macs4nw said:
On the fifth row, second from right, is a clock face that looks suspiciously like that Swiss Federal Railways clock, that was in the news around November of last year.
Click to expand...

It is the Swiss Railways clock, in watch form. But this was just a watch he owned, he had nothing to do with the design.

----------
I WAS the one said:
“at that time Apple was not a great company, it was just a small computer company.”

He wasn't a passionate visionary artist, he was just a worker. You don't join a startup company because is big and powerful, you join a startup company because you love the dream too.

I can imagine (even if he's millionaire today) how bad that sentence sounds today.
Click to expand...

That's a bit harsh on him, since there could have been many reasons for him to decline joining Apple. Steve might have failed to convince him that Apple's vision was worth working for. Or his style of design was different to how Apple wanted their design.

Looking at Thinkpads, they are of a different philosophy to Macbooks. One's utilitarian and a workhorse, the other is sleek and modern. Both are some of the best designs in laptops thus far, but for entirely different reasons.
 
pruppert said:
Paul Rand designed the NeXT logo.

Sapper designed the Tizio lamp that Jobs so admired according to the Isaacson biography.
Click to expand...

606px-Lampe_Tizio_von_Richard_Sapper.jpg


The red dots and black body must be a signature of this guy as it is also like the black Thinkpad with red eraser nub mouse thingy.

thinkpad-283x247.jpg
 
macs4nw said:
His story is consistent and seems believable. Why would he make that up?
Here http://www.google.ca/search?q=richa...daKKYWCyQGQoIBA&ved=0CFYQsAQ&biw=1543&bih=878 are some of Sapper's designs.

On the fifth row, second from right, is a clock face that looks suspiciously like that Swiss Federal Railways clock, that was in the news around November of last year.
Click to expand...

The Swiss railway clock, as we know it now, was designed by Hans Hilfiker in 1953. It more complicated than it seems (all clocks are synchronised because when the CFF tells you the train leaves at 0714 they'll be damned if the doors aren't closing at 0740:01).
 
kas23 said:
The ThinkPad has got to be one of the ugliest laptops in the history of computing. Thank God IBM had an exclusivity deal with this guy.
Click to expand...

Heh. I actually love the ThinkPad design. Great, powerful and durable laptops. I can't stop collecting the things. There is something about them I find somewhat infectious and brilliant.

I guess it's just me. :cool:
 
kas23 said:
I suppose. But, yeah, it never evolved. It basically stayed the same forever. The Lenovo ones still look like they were made 15 years ago.
Click to expand...
Lenovo is not a design company, or even innovative. Lenovo is a cheap box-shifter.
iGrip said:
He was a fool for not going to Apple.
Click to expand...
Hindsight is 20:20 vision :rolleyes:

----------
chocolaterabbit said:
Looking at Thinkpads, they are of a different philosophy to Macbooks. One's utilitarian and a workhorse, the other is sleek and modern. Both are some of the best designs in laptops thus far, but for entirely different reasons.
Click to expand...
Wasn't the ThinkPad originally introduced in 1992 when Apple's PowerBooks looked like this:
140.gif
 
chocolaterabbit said:
Looking at Thinkpads, they are of a different philosophy to Macbooks. One's utilitarian and a workhorse, the other is sleek and modern. Both are some of the best designs in laptops thus far, but for entirely different reasons.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The ThinkPad is an incredibly good design.

I have learnt however that MacRumors is the worst place to discuss design. Just look at the panning the Phillipe Starck yacht or the Ruth Asawa fountain got.

Both beautiful things in their own ways, but not 2mm thick aluminium slabs designed by a certain Brit, so immediately dismissed by those who prefer to be told what they like.

(And before I get destroyed - I think the design of my MacBooks and iPods are beautiful. But the only and best (there's no such thing - design is not a race) style in which something should be designed? Absolutely not.)
 
Thinkpad (used to be) the best laptop

Say all you want, but the Thinkpad design is a classic. It also happens to be one of the most comfortable laptops to use, more than any other laptop (and I am including Mac).

Too bad IBM sold it all to Lenovo, it went downhill since...
 
The Thinkpad was a thing of beauty when IBM made them, definitely better than those jellybean clamshell iBooks.
 
The German aesthetic really seems apparent in the linked images. It's interesting to think about what Apple might have come up with him instead of Ive...

k-bigpic.jpg


----------
Drunken Master said:
Again, not amazing for its time, but a nice step up.
Click to expand...

Never having owned one, I'd forgotten about all the peripherals!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back